


A monument to your sins

by Sorbus



Series: Non nobis solum [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon, Secrets, Worldbuilding, i made up some loz history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28228788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorbus/pseuds/Sorbus
Summary: Reconstruction efforts in post-calamity Hyrule continue. Link and Impa have a disagreement over how they should go about it, while the ever-looming shadow of the sins of the past lay over their heads.
Relationships: Impa & Link (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Non nobis solum [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015569
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	A monument to your sins

For the people who knew them, it would come to a surprise that it was in fact Link, and not Zelda, who was spearheading the reconstruction of the royal library. In all fairness, it had come as a surprise to Link himself. 

Zelda was good with research, but she was uninterested in things she already knew. She was like a shooting star - always moving, trying to consume more and more in the brief span of her existence. She was not meant for quiet things, tucked away in a corner alonside other relics of a time long past. Zelda created new knowledge, strove to push the boundaries of what was known and unknown, her mind working two, no three, steps ahead of the conversation. 

Link was a man of movement. In some cases, that was the swing of the blade, the pounding of his feet, and the heady rush of falling from the air. But it was also in the quiet tactile warmth of an early morning hug. It was in the repetitive movements for the soil he plowed in order to plant more food. It was the sure stab of the needle, held by the patient hands of someone used to sewing their own clothes. 

In that case, it was no surprise that he took to book restoration in the same way he took to his other crafts. With a firm and steady patience, and a willingness to go for hours, back and forth, from touch to touch, learning the motions. 

Although it pained him to say it, there had been one minor benefit to the calamity's malice. Well as much as one could call it a 'benefit', the malice had been so toxic that even the usual molds and rot had scarcely touched the castle in the hundred year occupation. Link, when he thought of those few memories of the castle before calamity Ganon had been vanished, had thought it looked a little too much like a tomb. Suspended in time, dark and dismal, and without the benefit of being lost to the wilds. It was then you could see the true horror of the calamity: with the violence enacted upon the castle as fresh as it had been the day it happened. 

Not all of the books had bee spared, of course. Some of them had been vandalised by monsters. Some consumed by the malice itself. Many in the second floor had been bleached by the sun which had shone through the hole in the roof. 

More than the loss of the land, and even, she had whispered almost fearfully, the loss of life, Zelda had thought the destruction of an entire Kingdom's worth of knowledge had been devastating. The people had recovered wonderfully over the years. They might have small settlements, which had been few and far in between, but they had thrived in whatever quiet, safe space they had tucked out of sight from the hostile world. 

Link's unexpected helper in this project had been Karson, Bolson's young apprentice. He too was used to physical labour, but was more inclined to the smaller crafts than the bigger projects his mentor favoured. 

The project had taken a lot longer to get off the ground than Link anticipated. Zelda, as much as she would deny it, was a good leader. Even more so, she was a great project manager. Under her direction, an envoy from Karakino village had excavated the site of the library, in order to gather as many books as possible. The Sheikah were used to working together, and proficient at self defence, so they managed the task in good time. 

At first it had been up in the air as to who would host the books as they were reconstructed. Unsurprisingly the great kingdoms and settlements each wanted a share. The royal family had fiercely guarded much of their knowledge in pre-calamity hyrule, and it only took the destruction of the kingdom to make that knowledge free. 

The humidity of the Zora kingdom would be counter intuitive to reconstructing so many tomes. They would burn up before even getting close to the maw of Death Mountain. The Rito were far to travel to, and had very little space in their settlement, and the Gerudo were likewise very difficult to travel to. Furthermore, neither Link nor Karson would be welcome to spend all hours of the day inside Gerudo town, so the books remained closely guarded by the Sheikah while Link and his companion used Impa's back room as their workshop. 

It was calming work. The quiet _srk_ of a thin blade cutting new leather. The rustling of pages stacked one on top of the other. The smell of fresh ink, drying slowly by the lamplight. 

Link had been cautioned not to push himself, or to overwork his hands and wrists. One of the only similarities he felt he had with the Link of a hundred years ago would be their tendency to push themselves. 

He sighed. He missed Zelda. 

Purah had accepted Zelda on as an apprentice, but in return sent Zelda as her representative for the council that would oversee the reconstruction of the castle and Castle Town. It hadn't been what they wished for, when they encouraged the people to collectively govern themselves. Zelda had been upset, thinking that Purah had only accepted her apprenticeship to push her into a leadership position. Link thought she was accepted on her own merits, but that Purah used that to further her own agenda. 

Hyrule was a lot easier to deal with when its fate lied only upon the swing of his blade, Link thought. 

Stretching, he got up and waved to Karson, who was too focused to notice. It was time for a break. Perhaps some of Zelda's lessons were sticking after all. 

Impa was resting in the front room. Her small form was not dwarfed by her usual wide-brimmed hat: it was late and her duties as chief of the Sheikah were over for the day.

"Come, Link. Join me." She gestured to the tea set in front of her, already prepared for a party of two.

Impa had this way of speaking that even casual requests could be taken as commands. The weight of her age and experience lay round her like a shroud, ever present in her steely gaze. Whatever she had seen, during the calamity and it's aftermath, had hardened her considerably. 

Link nodded, but didn't reply. Today was not a verbal day. He made his way over to the low table she was at, and sat with practiced ease. 

"Will you pour for us?" 

'Of course,' he signed. 

"I heard you put in an order for paper from Tarrey town," is what she opened with. 

Whether she designed it that way or not, Link could not respond with his hands full of pouring their tea. However she got the news of his paper purchases were also outside the realms of his knowledge. 

"It's a lot more than I was expecting."

Link nodded. He had finished with her cup and moved onto his own, pouring steadily. The quiet sound of tea hitting his cup filled the space between them. 

And then: 

"And you contacted the leaders of the great three settlements."

Finally, he set the pot down. 

'Zelda did,' he signed. 'Get to the point, please.' 

Impa sighed. Maybe she wasn't used to such bluntness. Or maybe it made her nostalgic for a Link that will still yet unknown to him. 

"What are you two planning?" 

Finally, something straightforward.

'We're trying to reconstruct Hyrule,' Link signed simply. It was true. 

"And the royal family?" She shot back.

'The royal family is dead.' Link responded, face stone cold. 'There hasn't been a royal family in a century.'

"Zelda still lives."

'Zelda,' Link signed with angry, jerky movements, 'is not her father. She is free to do what she wants."

"She is the princess," Impa stressed, putting her teacup down with force and finally revealing her ire. "Whether she likes it or not, she has royal blood in her veins."

Link slammed his palms onto the table. His tea cup shook. 'She is a person,' he stressed, signing _person_ twice. 'She is worth more than her name, or her legacy, or her blood. The people of Hyrule don't need a ruler.' 

All at once the fight seemed to drain out of Impa. Sitting her, defeated, she looked every year of her long life: aged and worn down by both time and circumstance. 

"Do not misunderstand me, Link. I care for Zelda deeply. She is my friend. But she has a duty, as I do, and as you did. The blessing of the goddess upon our land lives on in her. I shudder to think what would happen to Hyrule without it." She purposefully ignored Link's scoff. 

'You're acting like I'm trying to kill her,' Link signed, incredulous. 'Zelda will still be around even if she isn't Queen.'

Impa took a long sip of her tea. Whether to avoid responding or otherwise, Link couldn't tell. It seemed to give her back some strength. "That is true." She eventually responded. "Perhaps in time you'll understand." 

Link rolled his eyes. 'If you say so,' he conceded. 

It could have easily ended there. Neither Link or Impa would back down, but they at least have the common ground of caring for Zelda, Hyrule, and even if it didn't seem so, each other. But Impa had an inkling of their plans, and if nothing else she was a creature of duty. 

"Do you really think you can make duplicates of an entire library thrice over?"

'You should know what I can get done when I try,' Link shot back. 

Impa chuckled. "That's true," she conceded. 

Then, 'are you going to stop me?'

That was it boiled down to, in the end. Impa evidently had very different ideals from both Link and Zelda, she still clung to the ways of the past. Unfortunately for them she was one of the few people who had the power to oppose whatever radical new idea they came up with next. Hell, Link was staying in her house because it was the most viable place to hold a library's worth of books. If she said so, his project would be finished before it even started. 

"There are some things that should only be known to the Royal family and those closest to them," she said. A roundabout answer, but not yet a 'yes' or 'no'. 

'Like that?' Link signed, pointing aggressively to the wall to their left. 'Sheikah slaughter.' 

Impa inhaled sharply. The wall he was pointing towards held an elaborate tapestry. It was in fact the same one she had shown him on his journey, depicting the victory of the Hero of ten thousand years past. 

However if one looked closely, another story was revealed at the margins of the tapestry. Soldiers, spears sharp and pointed at a group of people running away. 

'Cado told me,' Link continued. 'The people turned on you because of your technology.' He gestured angrily to the ever-present slate at his hip. 'You became outcasts, forced into exile. And only the people who gave it all up were welcome back as Sheikah, the rest Yiga. What Hylians do to them? The Yiga are right to hate us!'

"Don't presume to explain my own history to me." Impa snapped. "You cannot know everything from some second hand words and a tapestry." 

'Tell me then!' Link replied. 'That's why I'm doing this! We need to know our history if we want to avoid repeating it. We barely knew about the technology from ten thousand years ago, and look what happened!' 

Impa sighed, the anger leaving her. "I forget how young both of you still are. You cannot carry the sins of our ancestors around like a sword on your back, Link. They are not so easily righted."

Link said nothing, but his face was like stone; resolute. 

"Very well," Impa said. Link sat up straighter, attentive. "The King of Hyrule had become paranoid about the technology that had the power to seal away the calamity itself and sought for its destruction. As you know, this led to some persecution of the Sheikah." 

Impa paused to take a drink from her cup. Link was sure that their tea was long past cold by now, but he said nothing. 

"Royal family reccords speak of two groups, the compliant Sheikah who gave up their lifestyle and built this village. Then the Yiga, a violent resistance group that had returned to their assassin roots. This is wrong."

'Wrong?' Link asked.

"Wrong." Impa replied. "It is admirable what you wish to achieve, Link. But history is biased. While you may wish to share knowledge across the land of Hyrule which had once been denied to us, remember who's story you are sharing."

Link frowned. Impa gave him a moment to digest that, before continuing. 

"In reality the Yiga were mostly scientists and religious leaders. They believed our technology and lifestyle were an extension of the blessing of the goddess Hylia, who we have been close to since the very beginning of Hyrule."

Link's eyes widened in surprise. 

"Even when the rest of the land had forgotten her, it is said that the Sheikah remembered." Impa continued. "What eventually became of the Yiga is unknown: they disappear from our records thousands of years ago. Some say they died out, some say they married Hylians. Some say they left Hyrule altogether, it is impossible to say for certain what occurred of things long past." 

'So there were no assassins.' Link signed, thoughtful. Impa was silent for a long few minutes. Her lips thinned, and her expression flattened. Link, distracted as he was, did not notice.

"No," she said. "The current day Yiga were born out of a royal family fued. A Hylian King had married a Sheikah woman, and bore two sons almost identical in age. When one son was favoured to be the next King, his brother grew bitter. He looked to his heritage, and founded a group in the name of the Yiga, to defy the royal family and the succession he felt he was rightly entitled to. Many of his followers were young and disenfranchised, and opposed the Royal family for their own reasons." 

Link nodded, wide eyed.

"Remember Link, although they were founded under the same name, these groups are different. The spurned prince had only the royal records and whatever surviving scraps of technology the ruling family had kept as a basis to found his group upon. Very soon he was killed in the night, and his band of rebels eventually diverged further and further from even his purpose. They became enamored with the idea of a clean slate, a destruction of Hyrule as it then was, and a reconstruction in their image. This eventually led to the worship of the Calamity as the harbinger of their new world."

Link nodded 'But why can't we tell this to the people? It would clear the original Yiga's name.' 

"This is not a story you will find in the royal library, it is from my own people's long kept documents." Impa frowned. "Whether or not they trust us as a source, many people do not associate the Yiga with the Sheikah, and I do not wish to revive that association. The Yiga today, they do not need the sympathy reserved for my ancestors. Their traditions have long been cut off from ours, their beliefs spit in the face of thousands of years of worship for the goddess." 

'Okay,' Link signed, but with slow and uncertain hands. There remained a small frown on his face, likely from trying to digest all the new information. 

"Link," Impa said firmly. "Well meaning you may be, it is simply not your history to tell. Do not fight me on this."

'Okay,' Link seemed more sure, his movements strong and confident. 'I trust you.' 

"Thank you." Impa said. "I think it's time to finish up for today, don't you think? I wouldn't want for you to miss dinner."

Link nodded, and to show no hard feelings, shone her a smile. At the end of the day they were just two people trying to do right by the world in the only way they knew how. 

He made to tidy away his cup, but Impa waved him off. 

"Leave it, I am not too old yet to clean up after myself."

'If you insist,' Link replied. 'Let me go say goobye to Karson.'

"Of course," Impa replied, in a low murmur. Already she was focusing in the middle distance, almost lost to her thoughts. Link gave her a short bow before departing to the next room. 

In the end Link hadn't questioned her that much. Impa wasn't sure was she would have told him if he had. Sometimes it was difficult to separate the man who had been her comrade in arms from the young boy that looked to her for advice. 

'They have the same glare when they get serious,' she thought, bittersweet nostalgia resting on the back of her tongue. 

Yes the Yiga had broken away from the Sheikah, but they weren't the only ones. Few today would even know to question why, if the Sheikah had given up their technology and assimilated peacefully with Hylians, they had carved an entire hidden village into the cliffs. Or even, how they had managed to do so. 

Indeed many Sheikah had given up their way of life and lived peacefully. Why their settlements could easily be tracked by their descendants: Lurelin village was chock-full of people unknowingly sporting the same brown skin of their ancestors. Few of them, if any, would know of these roots. 

There were very few records about Impa's clan of Sheikah, the ones who retreated to the shadows. If she had anything to say, it would remain that way. 

The secret lay heavy, underneath her tongue, like the lingering taste of bitter, cold tea. 

Link entered the back room quietly, hoping not to disturb whatever peaceful atmosphere Karson had managed to fall into in his absence. He cleared his throat lightly. Karson looked up, mid-action, an unfinished blank book resting in his hands. 

"All done?"

'Yes,' Link replied. 'I'm going to head home for today. Don't stay too long.'

"Sure, sure," Karson replied, already going back to the task at hand. Link waved, but his companion had already dismissed him from his mind.

Carefully Link weaved in between the stacks of books, towards the exit. Every so often he would correct their placement, or shift a stack out of the way. If anyone were to look in upon him, that would be the only thing they saw him doing. 

He exited swiftly. Along his breast lay the weight of a thin journal with aged, yellowing pages, hidden from sight. It belonged to a Sheikah woman, who wrote in private about her feelings on getting close to the Royal family, and on the clandestine mission she was to carry out. 

It weighed like lead upon his chest.

But it would not be missed. Few probably knew of its existence a hundred years ago, and Link could say with confidence he was the only person alive today that did. All the better: some secrets weren't his to tell. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have no clue wherever I was originally going with this but this is where we've ended up. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos are very appreciated! Keeps that writing motivation lit


End file.
